This invention relates to the use of recombinant DNA techniques to produce therapeutic proteins, in particular to the use of such techniques to produce the protein human uterine tissue plasminogen activator (uTPA).
Rijken et al. (1979) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 580, 140 describes the partial purification, from human uterine tissue, of uTPA, a single chain zymogenic enzyme activatable by plasmin in blood to a 2-chain form capable of dissolving fibrin clots. uTPA is thus undoubtedly useful as a therapeutic composition for dissolving clots in patients suffering from a variety of vascular diseases, particularly myocardial infarctions resulting in clots in and around the heart.
Recombinant DNA techniques have previously been used to obtain mRNA from a line of cancer cells (Bowes melanoma cells) and the mRNA used to produce cDNA encoding Bowes TPA, as described in Goeddel et al. European Pat. Appln. No. 0093619.